Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-05-03
UNIVERSAL QUESTION.

From East to West, from North to
South. in every quarter and from every
direction of late years, has been heard the
question. " Has Salt Lake City sewer
age system ?" and the flush of shame has
risen to the cheek of the city's we'll
wisher as he has been compelled to an
swer "No." This question has
been asked in every eastern city
from whence flows the tide
of western immigration. 1t has been
heard in anxious tones on the depot
platforms of Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado
and Wyoming railroad towns. The we'll
to-do tradesman, or the artisan with skill
for his capital, has left the crowded East
to make a new home in the broad empire
of the setting sun. He has heard of
Salt Lake City, of its mafvelous climate,
of its capabilities for advancement, of
the rich region it dominates, and
he has said to himself: 81 will 90 to
Salt Lake and make there my new
hime." But he hears an extraordinary
statement made, statement that is al
most incredible, and at the first oppor-
tunity he propounds the anxious ques-
ton, "Has Salt Lake a sewerage sys-
temp To his unbounded astonishment
the answer is in the negative. He learns
that there is city approaching the last
decade of the nineteenth century, boast
ing its tens of thousands of inhabitants,
without sewer in its limits /;
that there is a city beneath a semi
tropical sun that is undrained of its filth ;
a city that reeks with its foul accumula-
tons, and where the deadly cess-pool is a
sanitarium. Marvelling much, the man
to whom Salt Lake City had been Mecca
of hope turns reluctantly aside, and To-
Gates elsewhere. The glorious climate,
the grand business outlook, the capabili-
ties for advancement, and in short
the magnificent promise of Salt
Lake is as naught. He has
a family dearer far to him
than the certainty of gain. He refuses
to expose wife and children to the deadly
influences graphically expressed in the
disgraceful words "no sewerage" And
so Salt Lake loses good citizens, and the
criminal apathy of her city government
is again illustrated. But the time is
rapidly approaching when the disgrace &c
the city and the age will be done away
with. The time is near when the City
Council will be compelled to take action
New and powerful influences are at work
The unprecedented business develop
ment now inaugurated, will have an in
evitable effect. The tradesman or the
artisan turns aside from the city because
they must accept the city as they find it
Capital is visited by no such terrors
Capital accepts not. 1t creates. And
capital is here. 1t has selected Salt
Lake, theatre in which tc
work its wonders. Capital de-
fers not to the city. The city
defers to Capital. In its chosen dwelling
and abiding place, Capital will tolerate
no drawback. The glorious hour mas
arrived when regeneration is necessity
Salt Lake will .hd regenerated perforce,
And in this work OF regeneration Capital
will find a native ally. Public senti-
ment has always been in favor Of
a sewerage system for Salt Lake
City. Self preservation is the first
law of Nature, and the people of the city
have always been anxious to protect
themselves by competent system of city
drainage. Nay, the people of Salt Lake
have always realized that such system
of drainage was wealth as well as health.
They have long realized that an efficient
sewerage system would be most power
full factor in advancement of their
city; that it meant civic prosperity
as well as sanitary amelioration.
The genius OF progress is natural to the
city. Ruthlessly dominated and checked
by the Church power, its germ has
never been destroyed. Though cast
down and trodden in the dust, progress
has always existed, and now at the call
of capital, it rises instinct with life.
Capital will find the progress natural to
the city no dormant ally. To them both
nothing is impossible. The time of de-
velopment is here. The removal of old
abuses is decreed. The moss-back record
of the past is to be record only.
Among the pressing questions of the
hour that of drainage will meet with
speedy and effectual answer. And with
the strong and steady flow of the modern
sewer there will pass from Salt Lake
City the slime and corruption of the cess
pool Of old.